Spotify shoots down big rumor; it still will not allow in-app purchases via the App Store

A few years ago Spotify became one of the leading voices rallying against the Apple Tax. The latter is the 15% to 30% cut of in-app revenue that Apple takes from developers by processing in-app purchases. So that it wouldn't have to pay Apple its pound of flesh, in 2016 Spotify stopped offering potential customers the ability to make in-app purchases from the App Store. On Thursday, the rumor mill put into motion speculation that Spotify was going to start accepting subscriptions via the App Store once again.

The rumor was based on some code strings that were discovered in the Spotify app that mentioned in-app purchases. But Spotify today denied that it is planning to allow iOS users to subscribe to the music streamer directly from the App Store. Spotify’s global head of corporate and policy communications, Farshad Shadloo, told The Verge, "We have no plans to switch IAP (in-app payments) on at the moment." And that means that those iPhone/iPad users looking to subscribe to Spotify's Premium service need to go to the music streamer's website to subscribe.

From June 2014 to May 2016, subscribers to Spotify's Premium tier were allowed to decide whether they would make their subscription payments via the App Store. Just this summer Spotify put the kibosh on these grandfathered subscribers. These subscribers were sent an email that said, "We’re contacting you because when you joined Spotify Premium you used Apple’s billing service to subscribe. Unfortunately, we no longer accept that billing method as a form of payment."

Grandfathered subscribers had their accounts automatically switched to Spotify's free ad-supported tier unless they signed up for the Premium tier using a payment service approved by Spotify using a credit card and PayPal. After Spotify complained to the EU about the Apple Tax in 2019, Apple said that it was taking a 15% cut on only 680,000 of Spotify's worldwide premium subscribers. These subscribers were the ones grandfathered in by Spotify after converting from a free ad-supported subscription to the premium service using Apple's in-app payment system (iAP) between 2014-2016.

That same year, Spotify CEO Daniel Elk complained that Apple failed to send important subscriber emails to Spotify members who subscribed through Spotify's website instead of the App Store, and also complained that these Spotify members were not being allowed to update their Spotify app. Apple denied both of these claims. And here we are over four years later and nothing has changed.

So despite the speculation, it appears that Spotify will continue to direct subscribers away from Apple's in-app platform so that it can keep 100% of every dollar it receives from iPhone and iPad users.